the toilet on the landing and went in. He was confronted by six cubicles, a row of washbasins, a long mirror and a paper-towel dispenser. There was no sign of any girl. On the other hand, the door of the third cubicle was shut and someone was making unpleasant sounds inside. Wilt hesitated. In less desperate circumstances, he might have supposed Mr Rusker, whose wife was a fibre freak, was having one of his problem days again. But Mr Rusker didn't use the Ladies' lavatory. Perhaps if he knelt down he might get a glimpse. Wilt decided against it. (A) He didn't want glimpses and (B) it had begun to dawn on him that he was, to put it mildly, in a delicate situation and bending down and peeping under doors in ladies' lavatories was open to misinterpretation. Better to wait outside. The girl, if there was a girl and not some peculiar figment of Mrs Bristol's imagination, would have to come out sometime.
With one last glance in the trash can for a hypodermic, Wilt tiptoed towards the door. He didn't reach it. Behind him a cubicle door opened. 'I thought so,' a voice shouted, 'a filthy Peeping Tom!' Wilt knew that voice. It belonged to Miss Hare, a senior lecturer in Physical Education, whom he had once likened rather too audibly in the staff-room to Myra Hindley in drag. A moment later, his arm had been wrenched up to the back of his neck and his face was in contact with the tiled wall.
'You little pervert,' Miss Hare continued, jumping to the nastiest, and, from Wilt's point of view, the least desirable conclusion. The last person he'd want to peep at was Miss Hare. Only a pervert would. It didn't seem the time to say so.
'I was just looking' he began, but Miss Hare quite evidently had not forgotten the crack about Myra Hindley.
'You can keep your explanation for the police,' she screamed, and reinforced the remark by banging his face against the tiles. She was still enjoying the process, and Wilt wasn't, when the door opened and Mrs Stoley from Geography came in.
'Caught the voyeur in the act,' said Miss Hare. 'Call the police.' Against the wall, Wilt tried to offer his point of view and failed. Having Miss Hare's ample knee in the small of his back didn't help and his false tooth had come out.
'But that's Mr Wilt,' said Mrs Stoley uncertainly.
'Of course it's Wilt. It's just the sort of thing you'd expect from him.'
'Well...' began Mrs Stoley, who evidently hadn't.
'Oh for goodness' sake get a move on. I don't want the little runt to escape.'
'Am I trying to?' Wilt mumbled and had his nose rammed against the wall for his pains.
'If you say so,' said Mrs Stoley and left the room only to return five minutes later with the Principal and the V-P. By then, Miss Hare had transferred Wilt to the floor and was kneeling on him.
'What on earth's going on?' demanded the Principal. Miss Hare got up.
'Caught in the act of peeping at my private parts,' she said. 'He was trying to escape when I grabbed him.'
'Wasn't,' said Wilt groping for his false tooth and inadvisedly putting it back in his mouth. It tasted of some extremely strong disinfectant which hadn't been formulated as a mouthwash, and was doing things to his tongue. As he scrambled to his feet, and made a dash for the washbasins, Miss Hare applied a half-nelson.
'For God's sake let go,' yelled Wilt, by now convinced he was about to die of carbolic poisoning. 'This is all a terrible mistake.'
'Yours,' said Miss Hare and cut off his air supply.
The Principal looked dubiously at them. While he might have enjoyed Wilt's discomfiture in other circumstances, the sight of him being strangled by an athletically built woman like Miss Hare whose skirt had come down was more than he could stomach.
'I think it would be best if you let him go,' he said as Wilt's face darkened and his tongue stuck out. 'He seems to be bleeding rather badly.'
